German interior minister backs Bundesliga restart in mid-May

Germany’s minister for the interior and sport said on Sunday he supports a resumption of the country’s football season this month.

Cologne supporters at the German Bundesliga match against Bayern Munich in February. Cologne have returned three positive tests for coronavirus as the league gears up for a resumption this month. Picture: AFP

Germany’s minister for the interior and sport said on Sunday he supports a resumption of the country’s football season this month despite the coronavirus epidemic.

“I find the schedule proposed by the German league plausible and I support the restart in May,” Horst Seehofer told Bild newspaper, three days before a meeting of German authorities to discuss the issue.

The German Football League (DFL) backs a resumption of matches without spectators around mid-May, which would make it the first major European championship to make such a move.

Seehofer, who plays a key government role on the issue as he holds several portfolios, has emphasised that the teams and players must respect several conditions.

“If there is a case of coronavirus in a team or its management, the club as a whole, and eventually also the team against which it last played, must go into quarantine for two weeks,” he said.

“There will continue therefore to be risks for the schedule of matches and for the classification,” if there is any contamination.

But he said clubs would not have any special testing privileges denied to the rest of the population. Some sides had suggested carrying out frequent tests of their players as a preventative measure against the virus.

Meanwhile, Cologne’s players are continuing to train despite three positive tests for coronavirus at the club.

Cologne said on Friday that three people had tested positive but didn’t name them or say whether they were players, who are currently training in small groups.

“The experts evaluate it as such that, due to the hygiene and infection prevention measures in group training, we can continue to train with those who tested negatively as we had been,” team doctor Paul Klein said on the club website Saturday.

Klein added nobody at the club was considered “category one” in respect of the three individuals who gave samples on Thursday. That is typically someone who either lives with an infected person or had close contact with them.

Players and staff around the Bundesliga began giving samples Thursday as part of an ongoing process designed to enable teams to return initially to full training, then to games later this month.

Most teams have not commented on test results. Werder Bremen said samples given on Thursday by their players and staff were all negative, and that they will undergo another round of testing on Sunday. Bayer Leverkusen and Eintracht Frankfurt also reported only negative tests.

One player from another Bundesliga club, Paderborn, tested positive in March.

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